Lifeguards reject new role

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COUNCIL lifeguards may be "cleaning toilets" this summer after voting overwhelmingly last night not to transition over to a Surf Life Saving Queensland run lifeguard service.

In a secret ballot all but three of council's permanent and casual lifeguards voted not to shift, a decision which will see them either redeployed or made redundant.

A number of lifeguards are furious that they were told in an information session by council's manager of Community Services Charlie Eames that if they elected to stay they would spend their summer "nowhere near the beach" and would be likely to be "cleaning toilets".

They viewed that advice as unacceptable bullying and intimidation. Mr Eames has subsequently gone on leave until November.

Lifeguards are also still waiting for a response to a formal vote of no confidence in council's lifeguard manager Scott Braby.

The cost to ratepayers of redundancy payouts to lifeguards has been estimated at close to a million dollars, an amount that no contingency was made for in the 2012-13 budget.

Lifeguards this morning warned that the real cost would be the loss of professional, experienced lifeguards from beaches during the busiest season of the year.

Australian Professional Ocean Lifeguard Association secretary John Andrews said this morning that lifeguards had real concerns about the new provider's ability to maintain standards built up over many years.

Council decided on August 23 to award a contract estimated to be worth $15 million over five years to Australian Lifeguard Service, the commercial arm of Surf Life Saving Queensland.

The decision was made without going to tender after council determined there was no other organization capable of delivering the service.

Lifeguards have been frustrated by the lack of information made available about their fate and by what they see as the skewed nature of a report recommending council outsource its responsibility for beach safety.

Since being shocked by the decision, lifeguards have been left frustrated by the lack of information provided by both Council and Surf Life Saving Queensland.

Risk assessment expert and CEO of riskfacilitator.com, Dr Paul Chivers, has reviewed the documents and raised concerns that council had not conducted a thorough risk assessment and no data had been provided in line with work health and safety legislation or international best practice.

Lifeguards say they were given an October 15 deadline by council management to either agree to transfer to ALS or elect to stay with council and be either redeployed to other positions or receive a redundancy payout.

While the lifeguards were seeking an extension to that deadline they received letters from ALS giving them until October 11 to agree to become employees of the new service provider.

Despite council saying the transfer would be seamless with no loss of working conditions and SLSQ saying publicly they would continue to be employed on current terms and conditions until 2015, lifeguards are still to receive a formal document that guarantees those outcomes.

"We've been humbled by support from the Sunshine Coast community who are largely opposed to council's plans to outsource the service and the secretive process that was followed to make the decision,'' a spokesman said.